Imagery in translation. Translating Edward Albee into Russian

DRAMA UNIT 2:

TRANSLATING EDWARD ALBEE INTO RUSSIAN

Introductory Notes

Edward Franklin Albee (born in 1928) is an American play­wright, one of the famous dramatists of the 1950s-1960s associat­ed with the so called Theatre of the Absurd. The term "absurd" is used in the meaning it was formulated in Camus's essay Le Mythe de Sisyphe (1942), where it was stated that the world is purposeless and indecipherable, the absurdity of which causes in man the feel­ings of frustration and bewilderment. According to the principles of the Theatre, the actions and dialogues of the plays are usually meaningless, senseless, contradictory. The reader — and spectator — of the plays is left bewildered and puzzled, for there may be no obvious logic in such a play, just a flow of incomprehensible dia­logues, strange behaviour and lack of action. Yet, by some strange chemistry, these plays make you think and understand things bet­ter, trouble your imagination and sharpen your feelings and rela­tions with the world and people.

The first (and most famous) play by Albee was The Zoo Story (195 8). It was staged at the same off-Broadway theatre where early works of Eugene O'Neill had been staged 50 years ago. Even when famous and renowned, Albee disregarded commercial the­atres of Broadway. He believed that they presented what the audi­ence wanted, rather than what is new and provocative. He thought that the Broadway public "are basically lazy audiences who want mere entertainment" and demand not big plays but big stars.

Edward Albee, in his best plays, is a sharp and shrewd crit-icist of the today's society. His absurd-looking situations and dia­logues have much sense in themselves, for they turn the reality

inside out and show people their own hidden and suppressed emo-

_

________ Практикум по художественному переводу__

tions, reasons and aims. The feeling of estrangement of man in the modern society has found its expression in his plays. The playwright is a skilful dramatist with a sharp feeling of the scene and tone. Some of his dialogues and remarks sound real poetry due to the shape, colouration and rhythmic value of words he has found for them.

The Zoo Story presents his wits and talent. The content seems really absurd; it tells how Peter, a gentle, well-dressed pub­lisher and well-mannered intellectual, on a Sunday afternoon in the Central Park of New York meets a Jerry, lean and hungry, lost and lonely underdog. Peter tells Jerry that he lives in one of the fashionable "high-income" districts of New York (the East 70^lhs streets), with a wife, two lovely daughters and a pair of parakeets, his life full of comfort and measure.

Jerry lives alone in a small room without a soul to speak or turn to. He tells of a mixed-up childhood, always drunken parents. He emphaticelly asks Peter if he wants to know what happened at the Zoo, but the story never comes to the point.

The two men speak the same English language, but they fail to understand each other because they live as if in two separate worlds, incapable to share the experience of each other. The impenetrable wall of estrangement, prejudices, fears and stereotypes is being built with words. They are mostly "absurd" words, which do not say what is meant, but threaten, puzzle and irritate.

It is no easy task for translator to reconstruct this wall in the Russian language and associate it with Russian speaking habits and associations.

Task for comparison:

Дата добавления: 2015-08-03